Answering machines and services exist to assist telephone users in receiving calls that they are unavailable to answer or may have otherwise missed. A recording mode on an answering machine may switch on after a pre-set number of telephone rings have occurred without the call being picked up. During a recording phase, a pre-recorded message may be played for the caller, and then a digital or analog recording medium may be engaged while the caller speaks a message. In some cases with tape-recording answering machines, the caller's message may be played aloud by means of a speaker while the message is being recorded. More recently, cellular telephones and other digital telephony technologies have come about. These systems may employ answering services, whereby a missed call is relayed to a voice messaging server for recording and later retrieval.
The leading number of each reference number within the drawings indicates the figure in which that reference number is introduced and/or detailed. As such, a detailed discussion of reference number 101 would be found and/or introduced in FIG. 1. Reference number 201 is introduced in FIG. 2, etc.